


A Three-Word Sentence

by jollywriter



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Happy Ending, hurt comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-26 05:43:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10780755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jollywriter/pseuds/jollywriter
Summary: Kara Danvers, hurt and stressed from her life existing as Supergirl, collapses on Lena Luthor, who finds unexpected and deeply meaningful ways to support and restore her.





	A Three-Word Sentence

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on Tumblr @thejollywriter for more updates and angst!

 

Lena looked up from her computer as Kara landed. It was harder than usual and Lena flinched, despite herself. Loud noises startled her no matter how hard she tried to be calm about them.

Lena knew the minute she laid eyes on Kara that something was wrong. Lena stood.

“Are you wounded?”

Kara seemed dazed. She looked slowly over at Lena. “What?”

“Kara, are you alright?” Lena asked. It still felt odd to address her that way. She’d known for months that Kara Danvers and Supergirl were one in the same but still, seeing Kara in the uniform was disconcerting.

“Um. Yeah.” Kara nodded, slowly.

Lena looked at Kara’s hands. “You decided to have the food delivered instead?”

Kara looked at her hands suddenly, realized, “Oh. Wait. I didn’t bring the takeout.”

“It’s okay,” Lena said, and reached to hug her friend. “Really. We’ll order in. Lots of options, okay? It’s not a—“

Kara’s face scrunched up and she put her hands over her mouth and nose and tears trickled down her face.

Lena stopped. She struggled to suppress the immediate defensiveness she felt. Kara was hurting and there was a vein of rage that ran deep through Lena, an indignant resentment that she didn’t have to cope often with but something she was well aware of.

Someone hurt her friend, and she struggled not to feel immediately vengeful for that. This was Kara; Kara would not be comforted by promises of violence.

“Kara,” Lena’s voice was soft and gentle and as kind as she could physically make it.

Kara gave voice to her pain now and she shook her head, “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m crying.”

Lena closed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around her immediately. There was no hesitation, she pulled Supergirl into the tightest hug she could manage.

Kara couldn’t move her arms to hug Lena back, she just rested her head against Lena’s shoulder and sobbed, hands close to her chest. Kara shuddered as she cried, and she breathed hard and tried to control herself.

“Lena, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to break down, I’m sorry, I can go—“

“Don’t you dare,” Lena’s voice was not loud. She didn’t have to exert herself. If Kara wanted to leave, Lena had no physical power to stop her, and Lena prayed this one time that Kara did not try and run.

Kara stayed. And Lena held her.

It took a number of minutes before Kara was even close to calming, and Lena went stiff in places she didn’t know she had muscles to use. She didn’t care. She didn’t make a noise of protest. She just held Kara tight.

After a moment, Kara seemed to shut it off. It was a brick wall of control, something she lowered down on herself. Lena recognized it.

Power recognizes power.

Kara pulled back, slowly. Her eyes were bloodshot, her face was splotchy, and her nose ran. Kara wiped her face on her sleeves.

“I am so sorry,” Kara whispered.

Lena took Kara’s hands. “Please sit down with me.”

“Lena, no, I can’t, you’ve done enough, I just need to go.”

“Kara,” This time, Lena put some steel in her voice. “You’re not alone, okay? You may think yourself Atlas but there’s nothing you face that you have to carry alone.”

Whatever strength Kara used to stop her crying seemed to whither. She didn’t start again, but Lena was prepared to hold her for as long as it took. All night, if necessary.

Any night, if she were honest with herself.

“Okay,” Kara whispered. “Okay.”

Hands still linked, Lena led Kara to the pristine white couch. They sat, partially facing each other, Lena kept Kara’s hands in hers.

“What’s wrong, Kara?”

“I,” Kara struggled to maintain control and her eyes began to water again. “I, _hurt_ ,”

“Tell me.” Lena squeezed Kara’s hands. “Anything. I mean it.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Kara shook her head. “There’s so much there I don’t know where to start and I shouldn’t be upset about it because it’s not anyone’s fault but my own.”

“Just start. It doesn’t have to be organized.”

Kara’s face pinched as she struggled to think, and finally she burst, “Alex was going to be a doctor. She went to med school, she almost graduated.”

“I believe it. Alex is brilliant.”

Kara’s face traveled through a variety of feelings, between pain and admiration and jealousy and acknowledgement.

“She is,” Kara’s voice was soft. Resigned. “She wanted to be a doctor when she was a little girl. And then I came along.”

Lena didn’t say anything. Her immediate response was to say ‘it’s not your fault’ but professional instinct stopped her. And, it didn’t seem right.

“You know she’s with Maggie?”

“They’re a cute couple,” Lena didn’t have to lie. It was mushy and gross the way Alex looked at Maggie. Lena stopped herself looking at Kara that way, in case Kara should notice.

“I stole something from her,” Kara said. “When I came out as Supergirl, there were parallels to Alex coming out as gay. I don’t know how to explain it. But. Everything I do steals something from Alex. I took time and attention away from Alex because Eliza and Jeremiah focused on me when they should’ve focused on Alex. I was a stranger and I didn’t belong and I stole time from Alex to figure herself out.”

Lena said nothing, but she did _not_ let go of Kara’s hand. Despite her fierce grip on Kara’s hand, Lena still felt Kara’s hand tremble.

“Because Alex didn’t get a chance to be a kid. To explore and grow and just be a kid because I showed up, an alien that didn’t get anything, and she had to raise me with her parents. I was a sister and she had to raise me like a daughter. Everything in her life became secondary to helping me learn to cope and fit in.”

It sounded similar to a different story to Lena. When she was adopted, she was not welcome. Lillian wanted a clone. Someone to groom and craft into a part of her empire. Lex wanted someone to play with. Lionel didn’t care.

“I know how it feels,” Lena said, quiet as she could.

Kara looked from her hands, up to Lena, with an expression of confusion and awe and such open-hearted trust that Lena just wants to smother her in hugs and never let her go because she’s so vulnerable, she’s so soft, how could anything bounce off her?

Lena focuses, “I wasn’t a daughter. I was a pawn. Dad used me to get at mom or stir her to something he wanted. Lex used me to get even with our parents for hurting him. And mom used me to torment dad because I wasn’t a real Luthor, and it was his idea to adopt me.”

Kara’s eyes were wide and her jaw fell, “Lena, I’m so sorry.”

Lena reached up and ran a thumb under Kara’s wet eyes. She came away with tears she did not wipe on her clothes. “It’s okay. I just told you that so you know, I kinda get what you mean.”

Kara squeezes Lena’s hand gently. “I’m sorry you went through that.”

Lena shrugs. “I forgive a lot because it means I met you.”

Kara looked away, blushed briefly, and then sighed. The sadness took her once more.

“What else, Kara,” Lena urged.

“Did you know that Krypton’s dead?” Kara’s voice is a ghost, and there’s just so much there that Lena can’t comprehend all of it.

“I did,” Lena answered her voice with a whisper. “Tell me about it.”

Kara shook her head. “No. I can’t. I won’t.” her hair got into her eyes with the violence of her shaking head.

“Kara,” Lena brushed Kara’s hair out of her face with the softest of touches. Kara was a contradiction. She looked soft and yielding and yet just beyond the surface of her skin was a hard density that was difficult to explain.

“Kara,” Lena said. “How did you process the death of your world?”

Kara’s lip began to tremble. She squinted her eyes shut. “I haven’t.”

Lena didn’t hesitate, and Kara didn’t resist. Lena drew Kara into her arms, and hugged her again. Kara drew her arms to her chest, cradled her hands under her chin, and was very small while she cried.

This time, Kara was almost silent.

Lena waited. All night if she’d have to, but she’d wait this out.

Lena couldn’t feel the pain of losing a world. Except there was an echo of it in her heart, something she’d struggled with ever since Lillian took her bear and ripped it up in front of her. What had she been, seven? Eight? Less than, probably. But her world ended when her parents died, and Lillian forbade her from mourning their passing.

The scale didn’t match but the feeling did. The isolation, the hurt, never having a chance to recognize the enormity of the pain.

“My cousin doesn’t know Krypton,” Kara whispered. “Sometimes I hate him, because he acts like he carries the burden of being the last son of Krypton. And he is, technically, but all he’s ever known was Earth.”

“You remember your planet?”

“I was twelve when my parents put me in a pod and threw me away,” she shook her head. “No. They didn’t. They tried to save me. And they did. I mean. I’m here.” Kara pushed herself gently upright and sat with her hands on her knees, her cape mussed behind her, her hair a mess.

“Kara,” Lena leaned forward. “You’re not weak for being hurt by this.”

“Yeah, I am,” Kara shook her head. “Because it isn’t fair to them. Alex had dreams she never got to realize. James and Winn and Hank had lives before they met me. Experiences they wanted and expectations and dreams and I messed with that. Because I came out to them.”

Lena looked down, and said nothing for the moment.

“I feel like a leech,” Kara shuddered. “How stupid does that sound?”

“It doesn’t sound stupid,” Lena said. “It sounds like you’re in incredible pain and you can’t cope.”

“I _can’t_ cope.” Kara said. “I don’t know what to do! I want my sister but I’ve already taken so much I can’t ask for more. Lena, I took a life from her that she didn’t even get to realize. Everything that would’ve been done to help her grow and become better and find herself was given to me and she had to figure it out herself. Every time she gets hurt, that’s my fault!”

Lena didn’t want to rebuke Kara. She could see Kara’s logic.

“When you were evacuated from Krypton, were you given instructions?”

“Yeah. Take care of my cousin. He was a baby at the time. And then I get to earth, and I find out that my pod went off course and by the time I got here, my cousin was all grown up. And he took me to the Danvers and they adopted me.”

“Aw honey,” Lena rubbed between Kara’s shoulders.

Kara slumped, “I had one job, leaving Krypton. Take care of my cousin. And I couldn’t even do that. And nothing’s been okay ever since. Would Cadmus even exist if I hadn’t come to earth? Alex wouldn’t even be an agent if it weren’t for me! They exploited me, Lena, because I exist and I grew up with Alex they used me to get at her and recruit her!”

“That’s their crime, not yours.”

“But if I didn’t exist they wouldn’t have been able to get to her!”

Kara hung her head in her hands, “I don’t know how to deal with this, Lena. I’ve hurt so many people and now they don’t need me and they can have lives and I need them and I can’t ask for their help.”

Lena hesitated, wanted to lean forward and hug Kara, but held herself back. Quietly, she said, “You have me. You’re my friend, Kara Danvers. And I can promise that if it weren’t for you, I’d be dead.”

“If I weren’t here, you wouldn’t be threatened.”

“Oh honey,” This time when Lena said it, she did mock Kara. “Luthors have been pissing off people who try to kill them for centuries. Not even pretty, blue-eyed aliens can corner the market on assassination attempts on Luthors.”

Kara smiled, weakly.

Lena continued to rub between Kara’s shoulder blades. “You’ve got the weight of the world on your shoulders and you have no one to tell that you’re tired.”

“I _am_ tired,” Kara pleaded. “Lena, I am so tired.”

“You got me,” Lena said. “Unfortunately, all I have is this; tell me about Krypton.”

“I can’t. I may never stop. Except for when I sob.” Kara shrugged.

“Nothing’s dead so long as you remember it. And if you tell me? Krypton’s resurrected a little.”

Kara looked at her with an expression Lena couldn’t fathom. In her wildest dreams she could define it, but even though a goddess sat on her couch, Lena wouldn’t give herself permission to dream that.

She had an idea. It was still dark.

“Wait a moment, okay?” Lena said.

“Okay?” Kara panicked, but Lena put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. She went to the control panel on the edge of her desk, and turned off her office lights. She could see, barely, because of the ambient light from the city. “Come here?” she stuck her hand out.

Kara came to her, obediently and curious. Lena took Kara’s hand, and then gestured to the sky with the other one.

“Show me where Krypton was.”

“Lena—“

“If this hurts you too much to talk about, you don’t have to.” Lena faced her directly. “But I want to know. I want to carry this with you.”

“I can’t put the weight of my world on your shoulders.”

“A burden shared is a burden halved,” Lena brushed Kara’s hair out of her eyes. “You carry the hopes and dreams of a world, Supergirl. Including mine. Let me carry some of your pain.”

Kara’s eyes welled up again and Lena wrapped her arms around Kara’s shoulders. “I got you, okay? You may be the Girl of Steel but I’m the one with pot-stickers on demand, twenty-four seven, okay? I got you.”

Kara laugh/coughed against Lena’s neck and Lena grinned.

“I got you honey,” Lena said. “Okay? I got you.” It was a mantra and she kept saying it because the more she said it and the tighter she held Kara the more relaxed Kara became. “I got you.”

In college, drunk one night with some of the rich kids in the right social circle, Madeline cried about how you could say “I love you” without saying the words.

Get home safe. Text me when you get there. Drive safe. Did you eat today?

Things like that.

Lena didn’t agree. Hardened though she was after surviving under Lillian’s abuse, she’d held onto the belief that you didn’t really love someone unless you said the words. You had to say, “I love you.”

Standing there, with Kara in her arms, Lena came to an understanding.

Hearing those words is important. It’s not the only way to say the words. “I got you,” Lena said again.

Kara pulled back. She did not let go of Lena. Some of Lena’s hair had come undone during all the frantic hugging. Kara smoothed Lena’s hair and half-whispered, “I still do believe in you, Lena.”

Lena melted against Kara. Her own eyes grew moist.

“So. Show me Krypton?” Lena gestured to the night sky. They shifted so that Lena hugged Kara from behind, mostly so Lena cold more easily see where Kara pointed.

But her arms were around Kara. And when Kara looked at Lena, Kara smiled.

Nothing else mattered to Lena.

Kara pointed into the sky.

 

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading :) If you liked it, let me know! I'll do more <3


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